The EDISON New Forest Milestone is a declaration of collective ambition to further the establishment of the Data Science profession that was agreed as a collective action at the first EDISON Champions Conference. The New Forest Milestone captures the key outcomes of the two-day event and paves the way for subsequent Champions Conferences.

The New Forest Milestone

from the 1st EDISON Champion Universities Conference

13th - 14th July 2016

The New Forest Milestone is an outcome of the first educational EDISON Champions conference held in Brockenhurst, UK. The EU-funded EDISON project is working to support growth of the Data Science profession, and help reduce the shortage of data science skilled professionals across the research infrastructure landscape and beyond.

We understand the value of data, both big and small, together with data-driven technologies, and their ability to create value, increase knowledge and to bring societal communities together;

We believe that data-driven and data-centric technologies should enable deprived communities to engage with the wider world, and so work as a fuel for future economic development;

We recognize the need for many more trained data science professionals to make this a reality, and we feel responsible for a coordinated development to facilitate Data Science education and training by developing the Data Science curriculum and its wider educational framework across the digital ecosystem;

We recognize the value of the EDISON Data Science Framework (EDSF) and we want to share our experiences in further development and implementation of the EDSF;

We want to contribute to European and International initiatives to promote rigorous and ambitious data science programmes that are both competitive and empowering, and bridge traditional academic disciplines and professional divisions;

We will help undertake initiatives for national action plans that address the demand for data skills, and we will also engage with other universities and similar stakeholders in our own countries and elsewhere to promote this vision;

We expect EDISON to work on the set of learning materials on data-driven technologies literacy;

We will welcome the growing number of Champion Universities and Data Science ambassadors who will share this vision, and we look forward to building on these achievements at the next Champions conference in Madrid early in 2017.

Acknowledgement

The EDISON project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 675419. This website reflects only the author’s view and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

Partners

The core EDISON consortium comprises seven partners from different countries across Europe.